1970-80 The Dodge Challenger

The First Gen Dodge Challenger

Origin: The Dodge Challenger is considered one of the big 3 muscle cars of the United States. Along-side the Ford Mustang and the Chevy Camaro, they have put together some of the most fierce battles in automotive history. The Dodge Challenger was made to rival against the infamous Ford Mustang. An extremely interesting fact is that Plymouth (have partnership with Dodge) designed their own "pony" car, the Plymouth Barracuda, even before the OG Mustang was introduced. However the popularity and hype sent out for the Mustang quickly put the Barracuda into the shadows. So basically, the Challenger was an improved Barracuda and was Dodge's and Plymouth's way of getting revenge on the Mustang that stole the spotlight from the Barracuda in the early 1960's

R/T Edition

Purpose: As mentioned before, the Challenger was made to cast revenge on the Mustang. However, there were also many more pony cars out there to compete against such as the Camaro, Fire Bird, and Cougar. Many people did not think that the Challenger would stand a chance against the Mustang, so people started to rank it along side the Mercury Cougar which was the worst of the bunch.  This led to motivation for Dodge in which they responded by adding 11 different variants to their line-up. These were consisted of cars such as convertibles, luxuries, and models with the notorious HEMI engine. All these additions to their line-up allowed them to compete with fellow pony cars, but also cars that were not considered its rival as well.

1970 Mercury Cougar

Value: The Challenger showed us how the era of muscle cars were rising, especially pony cars. This era showed us how competition was rapidly growing in the automotive industry. The competition as mentioned before, led to car manufacturers to make many more variants of the same car. This was a very good strategy to use as there would be different prices that would appeal more to the public audience. This era also perfected the era of muscle cars in the US, which is basically the highest pride stake in America's automotive history.

Current day Dodge Challenger

Limitations: This car gives us zero information on what was going on in the Vietnam war. As the war was between the US and Vietnam in Vietnam, the Challenger doesn't give much insight on what was going on in that part of the world. Even though the Challenger revolutionized the Pony car competition, the car fails to tell us the more important things that were going on in the world.